And may I suggest the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman? I just (literally) finished reading Book One called Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in America). It is inTENSE. It is a book not easily described, either; to even attempt to explain the plot is difficult. I'll say this, though: it is much more subtle and intricate than anything J.K. Rowling has written, although I think it is meant to speak to the same audiences--firstly, that age group of 10 - 13ish. Nevertheless, any adult reader will be captivated by it. It revolves around the character of Lyra, a semi-orphan who was raised in Oxford at Jordan College by no one in particular and everyone in general. She becomes embroiled in some very secret experiments that challenge the prevailing cosmology and dogma of the Church. P.S. This is in an imagined world, much like our own, but not it. For example, while there is Christianity and Oxford and boats and cars, there are also dæmons, which are like a person's soul and their best friend in one. All humans have one, and they take the form of an animal, and one which reflects the true personality of a person. Childrens' dæmons change with regard to situation and emotion, whereas at the age of puberty, dæmons become fixed.
...But I've said too much already! Anyway, this book is fantastic and compelling, complete with armored bears and a total world of children. In fact, I've never seen a story in which children's thinking and interaction and motivations and desires and repulsions are displayed so accurately. In Pullman's novel, children have agency, and their own code of ethics, and their own logic. These are real rules, too; true of children in our universe and not just invented for Pullman's fiction. The novel shows children as they really are, not as we adults sometimes like to think they are. Children are clever, cruel, brave, capable, and free in ways that we forget as we age. Philip Pullman invests the children in his book with a wholeness one cannot find in the Harry Potter books, or the Lemony Snicket series, or even The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. He never reduces them to a single motive, and never underestimates or undermines their ability to be actors in their own story. This is an important lesson for any adult reader to take from the book and be reminded of in her own interactions with children in her own life.
In short, go read it. It's the bee's knees. And the movie of the first book (of which I speak) is coming out in December of 2007. http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/
And P.S. Thanks to Luke and Kelly for introducing me to His Dark Materials by buying me the (British edition! of the) trilogy for my birthday.
And now for some random Aurora Borealis:
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